September 19th

SOLON– St. Mary of Solon Harvest Festival will be held Sunday, Sept. 25, from 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. A pork and chicken dinner will be served. Adult advance tickets are $9, or $10 at the door, and children advance tickets are $5, or $6 at the door. The fest will feature a country store, silent auction, baked goods, children’s games and a raffle. Raffle prizes will be drawn at 2 p.m.: first prize $1,000, second prize $750, third prize $250, fourth prize Fat Tire bike.

JOHNSON COUNTY– On Aug. 4, Johnson County supervisors gave the green light to a new ordinance that allows commercial wind farms.
PNE Wind, which consulted on the ordinance with the county planning and zoning department, is currently negotiating leases with property owners between Solon and Morse. The proposed 30-megawatt farm will have about 20 turbines stretching across 3,000 acres.

You start out with the Hawkeyes making stupid penalties on both sides of the ball, the offense getting sacked and not finding a running game, the defense missing tackles and blowing coverage and special teams missing two field goals and kicking off out of bounds again.
What does that add up to?
THE GREATEST COMEBACK IN THE HISTORY OF IOWA FOOTBALL, 31-27, OVER PITTSBURGH!
Since I didn’t make it to the first game, this felt like the home opener for me.

David George Packard, 66, of Cedar Rapids/Iowa City, died Friday, Sept. 2, 2011, at Mercy Medical Center, Cedar Rapids.
Arrangements are with Murdoch-Linwood Funeral Home & Cremation Service, Cedar Rapids. Graveside service will be held at 10 a.m. Sept. 29, at Linwood Cemetery.
Please sign the online guest book for David at www.murdochfuneralhome.com.
David was a member of Calvin-Sinclair Presbyterian Church.
David was preceded in death by his parents; sisters Mary Packard and Diane Zukow, his partner, Van Stewart; and many friends and relatives.

Wilma Elaine Gill, 87, of Austin, Minn., died Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011 at Mercy Hospice in Iowa City. Funeral Services were held Monday, Sept. 12, at First United Methodist Church in Austin, Minn. Burial followed in Oakwood Cemetery.

Cycling back to Alton, we then drove to our next destination, St. Genevieve, Mo.
As its website proclaims, “This is a charming, laid-back town where bicycles don’t need locks and people stroll in and out of inviting little shops filled with antiques, crafts and wine.” It’s also the oldest settlement by Europeans in Missouri and many historical sites have been preserved.

Several years ago I wrote about four words for happiness. Those words were Love, Learn, Share and Play, and I consider them all to be necessary in order to be happy. We have to make time for each in our busy lives, and we never reach a point where we are ‘done’ with any of them. For a long time, I thought that the element of creativity was inherent in most of those four concepts. It seems I may have been mistaken. Since that time I’ve observed a number of cases where people who include those four things in their lives still seem to feel something is missing.

September 14th

NORTH LIBERTY— The newly installed stop light at the intersection of Penn Street and Jones Boulevard will be in flash mode Thursday, Sept. 15. Drivers on Penn will see a flashing yellow light, while those on Jones will see a flashing red light. North Liberty officials are urging all drivers to be cognizant of the change.

September 12th

NLYBS is conducting its first-ever fall softball/baseball league, in order to give kids an opportunity to experience playing at the Rookie and Junior levels before signing up for regular league play in the spring. On Aug. 27, kids were able to register for fall ball and have fun practicing skills of batting, fielding, and running the bases.